Now our own troops are the enemy?

Marines told to disarm before Panetta's speech in Afghanistan

More than 200 Marines were told to take their weapons outside and leave them there before Defense SecretaryLeon Panetta spoke to them Wednesday at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan.

Afghan troops had already been told not to bring their guns in.

"Something has come to light," Sgt. Maj. Brandon Hall told the troops. It was a highly unusual order, and some in the audience said they had never seen that happen before.

Asked about the order, Hall said all he knew was that "I was told to get the weapons out."

A U.S. defense official said the request was not a reaction to an immediate threat. Speaking on condition of anonymity to describe security procedures, the official said the base commander made the decision that no one would be allowed to bring in weapons.

The official said the decision was made out of respect for troops from other countries, such as the Afghans, who are never allowed to bring guns into an event. It was not a request from Panetta or his security team, the official said.

What kind of chicken sh!t BS is this? Even in Nam, when we were inspected by LBJ at Cam Ran, we were allowed to wear our sidearms.

To disarm US troops in a hostile guerrilla nation after an attempted truck bombing of the Sec Def the answer is to disarm our own troops. That base CO, is a candidate for Chairman Chiefs of staff in YOYO Baman Chi town bag boy regime. I swear to God this regime makes old Bubba seem like Abe Lincoln!

The Marines are professional troops, they could be trusted with their weapons. If there was any doubts as to the mental status of any individual Marine, then that Marine would not be allowed to attend. This was a major insult by the base commander

OSCSSW wrote:Speaking on condition of anonymity to describe security procedures, the official said the base commander made the decision that no one would be allowed to bring in weapons.

The official said the decision was made out of respect for troops from other countries, such as the Afghans, who are never allowed to bring guns into an event. It was not a request from Panetta or his security team, the official said.

works. That CO is taking the heat for what was probably just suggested to him unoficially in the hopes it will get his first or next star. How do I know? 26 years observing these guys in action.

StevoJH wrote:

OSCSSW wrote:Speaking on condition of anonymity to describe security procedures, the official said the base commander made the decision that no one would be allowed to bring in weapons.

The official said the decision was made out of respect for troops from other countries, such as the Afghans, who are never allowed to bring guns into an event. It was not a request from Panetta or his security team, the official said.IMO utter BS Steveo

OSCSSW wrote:Speaking on condition of anonymity to describe security procedures, the official said the base commander made the decision that no one would be allowed to bring in weapons.

The official said the decision was made out of respect for troops from other countries, such as the Afghans, who are never allowed to bring guns into an event. It was not a request from Panetta or his security team, the official said.

The key line from that article.

They can't do it unless told otherwise because they're foreigners.

These are Panetta's own countrymen.

Who would respect a leader who gets hoplophobic around them? If you don't respect him, how can you fight to your utmost for him? How can you win a war if you don't give it your all?

I have to agree with Steve on this issue. Right now neither Americans nor Aghanis trust the other. They are not fraternal allies- they are temporary allies. All it would take is one Hajii determined to become a Martyr or one Marine who is pissed off to open up and create a Sam Peckinpaw scene. Both sides are using the other for their own purposes. Panetta wants to trust the Afghans, but the base commander is responsible for the physical safety of his guest and he is not going to allow such a risk on his watch. Nothing can prevent such a scene unless you disarm the entire audience. Think about it this way. If Karzai was the speaker and the Afghan commander instructed the Americans to disarm at the door but allowed his own troops to retain their arms, wouldn't you be insulted? So what would you do?

Whatever one thinks about this incident in particular, it's a symptom of a genuinely dysfunctional relationship and strategic situation. If you can't trust picked troops to carry guns around an allied leader, there's something fundamentally wrong.

"Who would respect a leader who gets hoplophobic around them?
If you don't respect him, how can you fight to your utmost for him?
How can you win a war if you don't give it your all?"

does this mean you believe all soldiers that support the republican party should immediately be withdrawn from service till a republican once again sits in the president's chair?
would seem that the us military would be about half the size -no matter which party is in power as the other guys have to sit out...

The official said the decision was made out of respect for troops from other countries, such as the Afghans, who are never allowed to bring guns into an event.

I agree that's the key line. It would clearly be unwise to let Afghan troops carry guns in such a situation, not because Panetta is any more irreplaceable than US servicemen Afghan soldiers have turned on and killed in several recent incidents, but an incident involving a high ranking official would make the US and coalition situation there completely untenable. That's the sad reality. And it makes a degree of sense not to further inflame feelings by allowing US servicepeople to carry arms right into the meeting but Afghans not. I assume there was adequate force protection w/ armed US personnel outside the immediate meeting room, not everybody on the whole base disarmed.

Also, the civilian leadership, of either party, is not there to make friends with their uniformed *subordinates* any more than generals are in busines to make friends with captains, or sgts with privates. There's a reasonable rationale for not insulting allies by having only their people disarmed, but anyway it's an order, and no more suspect if it did come from Panetta than the base commander. Panetta is the superior authority anyway, civlian control is absolute. I'm as anti-Democrat Party as the next conservative, but I don't like the creeping politicization of the military, even if it has a rightward bent to it. The Founders didn't want a standing military because they believed it would inevitably become politicized. That's an idea of theirs we've completely ignored in recent decades, and while perhaps from necessity, conservatives shouldn't be hyprocrites and bemoan all the other Founder concepts we've contradicted but completely ignore that we've abandoned their distrust of a large standing military. Obama doesn't have to explain himself to the military. He's the CinC, their boss, end of story.

"US Bigshot visits a base where UK, Australian Afghanistan etc troops are based. They are told they need to sign all their personal weapons back into the base armory "

only Afghan troops. Given the number of assassinations of Afghan government officials and allied troops by uniformed Afghan security forces going back for years - a very sensible precaution.

Extending that to the allied forces while in an active combat zone which included a suicide attack against the SecDef as he landed - is utterly insane, irresponsible, contrary to the security of the forces, insulting and utterly indefensible.

Maybe the problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.

Where did the order originate from? The SecDef security team said it wasn't them. Only thing I have seen about the order was that it was the Base commander. Was he told by someone else higher up the food chain? Otherwise I fail to see the case for trying to make this the SecDef / Presidents fault.

JBren1 wrote:
Also, the civilian leadership, of either party, is not there to make friends with their uniformed *subordinates* any more than generals are in busines to make friends with captains, or sgts with privates. There's a reasonable rationale for not insulting allies by having only their people disarmed, but anyway it's an order, and no more suspect if it did come from Panetta than the base commander. Panetta is the superior authority anyway, civlian control is absolute. I'm as anti-Democrat Party as the next conservative, but I don't like the creeping politicization of the military, even if it has a rightward bent to it. The Founders didn't want a standing military because they believed it would inevitably become politicized. That's an idea of theirs we've completely ignored in recent decades, and while perhaps from necessity, conservatives shouldn't be hyprocrites and bemoan all the other Founder concepts we've contradicted but completely ignore that we've abandoned their distrust of a large standing military. Obama doesn't have to explain himself to the military. He's the CinC, their boss, end of story.

Yet there's a big difference between being politically coopted, like the Wehrmacht was by the Nazis, and individual servicemembers holding personal political opinions, even if those opinions trend strongly in one direction. After Bill Clinton was elected, my company commander didn't get up in front of the troops and tell us we had a great new leader to follow, he said that whatever our personal opinions were, we had to maintain loyalty to our Constitutional duties. So, Joe, please...no civics lesson. You're not the one to give it to people who have actually lived it in real life.

WRT topic, while the diplomatic logic of disarming the Marines makes sense in isolation, the reality is that Marines would not attack Panetta, or any other member of the Obama Administration, simply because they understand their duty. So it is an insult to them, especially since there was no question that they would follow orders and stack arms outside. Yeah, they sucked it up, like good Marines always do. But the message was loud and clear -- the command and, by logical extension, the Administration would rather insult their loyalty than make a point of the lack of loyalty among allied troops.

miketr wrote:
Where did the order originate from? The SecDef security team said it wasn't them. Only thing I have seen about the order was that it was the Base commander. Was he told by someone else higher up the food chain? Otherwise I fail to see the case for trying to make this the SecDef / Presidents fault.

Michael

There is a phenomenon in all hierarchical organizations where intermediate leaders perform in ways they think will satisfy the higher echelons. The Nazis called it "working towards the Fuhrer". Whil people generally don't like Nazi-derived terminology or comparisons with the Nazis, I can't think of a more descriptive or accurate term for it. The base commander was working towards the perceived needs and desires of the Administration. I doubt the same man, working under a different Administration, would have ordered the same thing. Heck, four years ago, the politcal dimension of Afghan troops probably wouldn't have even been an idea in his mind, much less a consideration.

It is not the first time something like this has occured. I have been on bases where I had to disarm because some Bannana republic General was visiting my unit and the Secret Service detail instructed the unit commander to ground our weapons. I sure as Hell did not like being told by the Secret Squirrels that I can't carry my weapon on my national soil after swearing to defend it with my life. But President Bush did not ask for my opinion, just my obedience to higher ups irregardless. Just like I told my troops "suck it up and play the game!"

sergeante wrote:
1. So, Joe, please...no civics lesson. You're not the one to give it to people who have actually lived it in real life.

2. WRT topic, while the diplomatic logic of disarming the Marines makes sense in isolation, the reality is that Marines would not attack Panetta, or any other member of the Obama Administration, simply because they understand their duty. So it is an insult to them, especially since there was no question that they would follow orders and stack arms outside. Yeah, they sucked it up, like good Marines always do. But the message was loud and clear -- the command and, by logical extension, the Administration would rather insult their loyalty than make a point of the lack of loyalty among allied troops.

1. Please shove it with the 'real life' bit. If you were in the military, good for you, but I'm a citizen who pays real tax money to fund the military, and my interest in avoiding politicization of the military is as 'real life' as yours.

2. Typical logical muddle of your responses. The decision made sense, if it did, and you seem to agree it did, because of relations with allies, not to seem to single out the Afghans, but OTOH it *is* prudent to disarm Afghan soldiers in such a situation, unfortunately, as recent events have proved. Therefore the decision was not made out of fear of the Marines, or there's no evidence it was, and the Marines only have to be a bit more clearthinking than you (not hard) to realize that. If admin officials start making a big point of avoiding possible attacks by US service people when only US service people are present, then the claim that the decision was made to protect Panetta from the Marines would have some logical basis.

JBren1 wrote:
1. Please shove it with the 'real life' bit. If you were in the military, good for you, but I'm a citizen who pays real tax money to fund the military, and my interest in avoiding politicization of the military is as 'real life' as yours.

2. Typical logical muddle of your responses. The decision made sense, if it did, and you seem to agree it did, because of relations with allies, not to seem to single out the Afghans, but OTOH it *is* prudent to disarm Afghan soldiers in such a situation, unfortunately, as recent events have proved. Therefore the decision was not made out of fear of the Marines, or there's no evidence it was, and the Marines only have to be a bit more clearthinking than you (not hard) to realize that. If admin officials start making a big point of avoiding possible attacks by US service people when only US service people are present, then the claim that the decision was made to protect Panetta from the Marines would have some logical basis.

1. I don't know anybody that pays their taxes with anything other than real money, Joe. The point was that you're not qualified to teach civics to former servicepersons in this community, because you have no comprehension of how politics is perceived or processed in the service environment. If you did, you wouldn't have even brought the subject up, because politically motivated action is so far out of the question.

2. You'd have a point if I'd said that the Marines in question were politically unreliable. But, in fact, I said exactly the opposite. I said that their political reliability is so dependable that it could be counted on to the point of absorbing an insult to that exact same reliability, in order to score diplomatic points.

Where did the order originate from? The SecDef security team said it wasn't them. Only thing I have seen about the order was that it was the Base commander. Was he told by someone else higher up the food chain? Otherwise I fail to see the case for trying to make this the SecDef / Presidents fault.

Michael

That is an interesting bit of info. I based my comment on reading somewhere that the base commander was responding to orders from above. The initial reporting pointed to the SecDef's security team. But if they say it wasn't them, then it sounds as if someone else in-theater may have dreamed that one up.

I guess it remains to be seen where that bit of insanity originated from.

If the base became overrun or under attack, it would be hell to pay if hundreds of troops and Marines were standing defenseless and indefensible/undefendable. Such a decision in the future that leads to an actual slaughter of soldiers by ambush might mean one helluvan insurrection or COC overhaul, top to middle.

Maybe they should just stop having these pow-wows that call for disarming troops. What next: "No eggs in the tent... We can't have our huge flat-panels egged during the tele-event..."?

There are other ways to increase morale of the Forces. Maybe the expeditious withdrawal will be a semi-silent morale booster...?